Is MS planning a Brand-X sorta kinda Linux-y feel? According to InformationWeek, MS licensed UNIX code from SCO because it is planning future products to appeal to those who like the way you can administer your box in the UNIX/Linux world:

So what exactly does Microsoft plan to do with the Unix code it recently licensed? Microsoft already uses some Unix code in its Services for Unix product, which makes it possible to run Unix applications on top of Windows by overlaying Windows with Unix interfaces and protocols. Microsoft execs were unavailable for comment, but an SCO spokesman says Microsoft also plans to use unspecified patented technology from SCO in future products.

One possibility could involve giving Windows' graphical administration tools more of the look and feel of Unix, for those who want it. In an interview earlier this year, Microsoft's director of Unix solutions, Doug Miller, said his group would deliver "several dozen" new Unix scripting commands sometime this year. "One of the things we heard loud and clear from Unix IT staff is, 'I'd like to be able to administer my Windows system much in the same way I do from Unix boxes,'" Miller said. ...

Not coincidentally, given the similarities between Unix and Linux, Microsoft's Services for Unix is what the vendor also sells customers who want Windows-to-Linux interoperability."

They offered Shared Source to lean toward the openness of GPL; now a Linux-y feature... what could they be thinking of? ... um... destroy it by proxy and then offer users Brand X?